Anna DePalo signed a contract with Harlequin Desire for the second and third books in her The Serenghetti Brothers series. Book two, Hollywood Baby Affair, will be out on June 1, 2017.

Vicki Weisfeld’s short story “Breadcrumbs” was published in Issue 3 of Betty Fedora, a journal whose tagline is “Crime Fiction for Kickass Women”!; her story “A Slaying Song Tonight” was published in the January/February issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; and “Burning Bright” will be published by Level Best Books in the anthology “Busted: Arresting Stories from the Beat” in April. Reprints of two of other stories appeared in Kings River Life (10/16) and a John Greenleaf Whittier foundation anthology (forthcoming: April 2017).

Tina Gabrielle, writing as Tina Kashian, has sold a three book cozy Mediterranean Mystery series to Kensington Publishing Corp. The first book, “Hummus and Homicide” will be released in 2018.

LSF Writers member Eileen Watkins has signed a three-book contract with Kensington Books to launch a new series, the Cat Groomer Mysteries. Her stories will feature 27-year-old Cassie McGlone, who owns and operates a cat grooming and boarding business in the fictional small town of Chadwick, N.J….and ends up solving murders on the side. The first in this series, The Persian Always Meows Twice, has already been accepted and is due out in October 2017. For more information on Eileen, please visit www.efwatkins.com.